Blow Out Your Blood

1. Blow Out Your Blood Feraco Myth to Science Fiction 21 November 2009

2. Canto XII: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Round One • Figures: The Minotaur, Chiron, Nessus • Allusions: The Earthquake, Harrowing of Hell, Hercules, Achilles, Alexander the Great, Dionysius, Azzolino da Romano, Obizzo da Este, Guy de Montefort, Atilla, Sextus, Pyrrhus, Rinier da Cometo, Rinier Pazzo • Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Neighbors)

3. Canto XII: Data File • Summary: The Poets climb down the fallen rocks until they encounter the Minotaur, a horrible monster prone to rage and violence. Virgil mocks him, and the poets escape when the Minotaur leaps about in a frenzy. They descend toward Phlegethon, a boiling river of blood that marks the beginning of the First Round of the Seventh Circle. Murders, tyrants, cruel warriors, bandits – all are submerged in the blood according to the degree of their sin in life. Those who try to rise above the blood are shot with arrows by Centaurs, half-men/half-horse creatures who prowl Phlegethon’s banks. The Centaurs stop the poets at first, but Virgil convinces Chiron, their honorable leader, to allow them safe passage. Chiron sends another Centaur, Nessus, to bear them across Phlegethon at its shallowest point; Nessus identifies those who were Violent Against Their Neighbors by name for the poets, drops them off, and leaves.

4. Violence Against Neighbors • It’s one thing to be violent – a bad thing, obviously • However, a recognizable pattern emerges as Dante recognizes more and more of the sinners • Most of these aren’t just killers – they’re infamous for their audacity and cruelty • In other words, they aren’t simple men whose tempers got the best of them once or twice; those ones head up to the Fifth Circle • These are men who determine pre-meditatively to kill or destroy, and who reap profit or enjoy doing so

5. The Punishment • The Violent Against Their Neighbors must stand in the boiling blood or risk being shot • While it doesn’t seem like an arrow would scare a soul that can’t die, it’s important to remember that their punishment is supposed to be eternal • The arrow wouldn’t kill them, but – like Cerberus tearing at the Gluttons, or the Wrathful tearing one another apart – it will damage them in non-permanent ways that still cause considerable pain • The blood’s symbolism is clear: you’re covered in an amount that’s proportional to the damage you caused during your life • That’s why warlords like Alexander the Great stand up to their lashes in it; they killed about as frequently as a man could

6. The Minotaur • He’s the Seventh Circle’s Threshold Guardian and, as with so many of the other guardians of Dante’s Hell, he’s also a Creature of Nightmares; he’s half-man and half-bull • The Minotaur was conceived in an act of Violence Against Nature, committed ritual acts of Violence Against Its Neighbors, and it routinely commits Violence Against Itself as it rages; it was born of violence, and died violently • It is in every way a perfect Guardian for the Seventh Circle

7. The Minotaur • Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, fell in love with a white bull, and decided to trick it into mating with her • She asked Daedalus (an inventor we’ll hear about again later) to construct a wooden cow that she could hide inside; Daedalus obliged, the bull fell for it, and thus was the monstrous Minotaur conceived • Everyone was horrified by this unnatural creation (as you probably are right now), and Minos had Daedalus build an elaborate kind of maze – the Labyrinth – that could serve as a prison for the beast • Minos’s son, Androgeos, had been killed by Athenian citizens; rather than wipe them out, Minos sought to teach them a lesson, and allowed them instead to sacrifice seven boys and seven girls each year to the Labyrinth. Nobody could escape from it – not the children, and not the Minotaur (who would eventually devour each one) • This continued until Ariadne (the Minotaur’s half-sister) fell in love with Theseus (remember him?), one of the youths scheduled to be sacrificed; the two plotted the latter’s escape. Armed with only a sword and a ball of thread (which he unspooled as he walked, Theseus heads for the Labyrinth’s center, where he slays the Minotaur, follows his thread back to the entrance, and walks out alive (a perfect parallel to Dante’s journey through the Inferno)

8. The Centaurs • The Centaurs’ upper bodies are human, but their lower halves are horse-like. They were often violent or crude figures in classic myths, and almost always warriors; modern stories generally soften their portrayal • They guard Phlegethon with that same warrior zeal, although their leader, Chiron, was renowned for his intellect as well as his courage; he was reputed to have tutored both Hercules and Achilles • Nessus, on the other hand, was killed by Hercules; the hero trusted him to carry his wife, Deianira, across a river, but had to kill the Centaur when he tried to rape her • He avenged his death immediately by offering his blood-soaked shirt to Deianira as he died, convincing her that it would serve as a love charm; when she doubted Hercules’s devotion, she gave him the shirt, not realizing that Nessus’s blood would poison him. • The Centaurs are therefore both capable of reason and rage, yet another way for Dante to illustrate how humans have mixes of virtue and darkness within themselves

9. Rogues’ Gallery • We see the souls as they’re described to us through Dante’s eyes, and his reaction’s fairly neutral; this will not always be true of the souls he encounters in the Seventh Circle • Alexander the Great: Ancient King of Macedonia who nearly conquered the world (as best he knew it) • Dante writes favorably of him elsewhere, but punishes him here • His main sources of history (such as Lucan’s Pharsalia) helped fuel Alexander’s reputation as “a cruel, bloodthirsty man who inflicted great harm on the world”; how could Dante not acknowledge his deeds, even if he respects him (as he did for Farinata and Francesca)? • Atilla the Hun: A warlord so terrible that he earned the nickname “Scourge of God,” Dante mistakenly believed that Atilla had been responsible for Florence’s destruction during the 5th century (Dante’s Florence had been built on the ruins of the old one, which Totila had destroyed)

10. Rogues’ Gallery • Dionysius: The Tyrant of Syracuse/Sicily, infamous for a forty-year rule during which he treated his citizens extremely harshly • Ezzolino da Romano: A hairy and cruel-looking Ghibelline, and the son-in-law of Frederick II; he supposedly had a single long hair on his nose that would stand on end when he grew furious, driving those around him to flee • Ezzolino was so ruthless (having burned eleven thousand men to death during one massacre alone) that Pope Alexander IV launched a crusade against him • Opizzo da Este: A Guelf noblemen who ruled several northern Italian cities with a cruel hand (notice the pattern?)

11. Rogues’ Gallery • Guy de Montfort: An English noble bent on avenging his father’s death, he slew his cousin during Mass; the cousin’s heart was placed in a golden cup, where Nessus says it still rests, dripping blood into Phlegethon • Pyrrhus: Either one of two figures; one was a king who invaded Italy twice in order to attack the Romans, while the other was the son of Achilles, a warrior who (according to The Aeneid) killed a Trojan prince in front of the royal family during the sacking of Troy before dragging the king out into public and killing him as well • Sextus: The son of Pompey (who waged war on Caesar in Pharsalia) who wrought havoc on Italian coasts, earning the nickname “The Pirate of Sicily” • Rinier da Cometo & Rinier Pazzo: Famous highway bandits during the thirteenth century

12. Canto XIII: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Round Two • Figures: The Harpies, Pier della Vigne, Arcolano da Siena, Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea, Unknown Florentine Suicide • Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Themselves) • Summary: The poets enter the Wood of the Suicides, a realm where the souls of those who destroyed themselves (or their substance) stand locked within trees where Harpies roost, eating and tearing at their leaves. As the Harpies feed, they open wounds on the trees’ limbs and leaves…and the wounds spout blood. As long as the blood flows, the souls can speak; when the wound seals itself, the souls’ voices are cut off. One of the trees houses the soul of Pier delle Vigne, a member of Frederick II’s court, and the poets stop to converse with him about the way the Wood of the Suicides operates. Then two souls, Jacomo and Arcolano, dash through the woods, tearing the foliage as their run from a pack of ravenous dogs. The dogs catch Jacomo, tear him to pieces, and run off carrying the pieces in their mouths. After watching the carnage, the poets realize that the bush that the dogs tore through to get at the souls is gushing blood from its wounded limbs, and they talk to the soul of an anonymous suicide trapped within it.

13. The Violent Against Themselves • Dante defines the Violent Against Themselves as those who destroy either their physical forms or the resources they should use instead • Those who kill themselves are trying to destroy the substance that God gave them, something that’s meant to be immortal (therefore defying God’s will) • The Suicides will not have their bodies returned to them during Judgment; instead, the empty shells will be slung over the trees in the Wood • In addition to those who killed themselves, Dante populates the Wood of the Suicides with the Squanderers • They’re similar to the Wasters/Prodigal from the Fourth Circle, but whereas the Prodigal simply spent money recklessly or needlessly, the Squanderers actively destroy the things they’ve always had or have acquired (which Dante defines as a person’s “substance” for the purposes of putting them here)

14. Suicide • Just as Dante seemed to adopt a nuanced view of Lust during Canto V (even if God doesn’t), he seems to take a similarly ambiguous stance towards the Suicides • Dante’s favorite writers and teachers essentially covered the spectrum of views regarding suicide • Many of the classical Roman writers Dante respected so deeply either presented or praised suicide as a legitimate response to personal dishonor or political defeat • Medieval Christianity, however, stated unequivocally that suicide was sinful • Thomas Aquinas argued that suicide not only violates the self-preservation instinct God gave human beings, but also usurps control of life and death from God and Fortune (not to mention the nearly incalculable damage it causes to a larger community) • Dante shows the Suicides real compassion, and he even puts others (such as Dido) in other circles instead; it’s hard to tell how deeply he condemns them

15. The Punishment • The Violent Against Themselves have their souls locked away in the Wood of the Suicides; Harpies damage them, and they’re largely unable to speak • There’s meaning to each element of their punishment, starting with their non-human form (they destroyed their human one, so they can’t have any of the benefits of one) • As a result, they’re always stationary and trapped, just as they were unable to escape their darkest urges • Their ultimate expression was self-destruction, so they can now only express themselves as they are destroyed; as Ciardi puts it, their blood becomes their voices • Finally, the Harpies – horrible creatures with the heads of women and the bodies of birds of prey – defile or dirty everything they touch; thus their means of expression is simultaneously defined as hideous and wrong

16. Pier della Vigne • He was an accomplished poet (particularly when it came to sonnets) and a member of the Sicilian School • As a young, well-educated, and rhetorically gifted young man, Pier shot through the governmental hierarchy until he became the judge and official spokesman for Frederick II’s imperial court (at which point, his soul implies, he claimed final say over Frederick’s decisions) • While he argues that he always served Frederick faithfully, history is split; while it appears he was guilty of some corruption, it looks more like he became the victim of political enemies and peers who envied his access • His story is meant to mirror Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, as Pier is given everything only to have it taken away bit by agonizing bit • In the end, Pier cannot accept the horrible hand Fortune dealt him; after being imprisoned and blinded for his supposed crimes before his release, Pier either smashed his head against a wall until he died or leapt from a window in order to smash into the ground beside the emperor he supposedly betrayed (the evidence from the end of his life isn’t the clearest)

17. Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea • Jacomo da Sant’ Andrea was a particularly notorious Squanderer who actively committed senseless acts of violence against his own property • For example, he set fire to all of the cottages on his property in order to provide a welcoming ceremony for a group of dinner guests, or simply threw his money into the water during a boat ride • Jacomo enjoyed a position of some influence; he was the wealthiest private citizen in Padua, one of the cities where Ezzolino (from the First Round of the Seventh Circle) ruled • In fact, Ezzolino eventually had him executed for his grievous wastefulness • He’s torn apart by the dogs because he tore apart his resources (“substance”) in life

18. Arcolano da Siena • Arcolano da Siena belonged to a group of rich young men called the Spendthrift Club whose members saw burning through money as a point of pride (again, different from the Prodigal, who simply couldn’t help themselves from spending) • Arcolano reduced himself to poverty fairly quickly, at which point he joined the Sienese military in order to deliberately court death (having decided that living in poverty was intolerable) • When his troop appeared to be caught in an ambush, he could have escaped, but escape meant returning to the life he abandoned and facing up to the problems his earlier behavior had caused • Unable to bring himself to face the consequences of his actions, Arcolano instead decides to let himself be killed by the advancing enemy (which is why Jacomo mocks him for running from the dogs now that he’s dead)

19. Unknown Florentine Suicide • The anonymous soul that Dante and Virgil discover in the bush that’s destroyed by the dogs pursuing Jacomo is supposedly a citizen of Florence who hanged himself in his own home • The man may actually represent Florence itself, at least in its original incarnation • Midway through the fifth century, Florence supposedly began expressing its identity as a newly Christian city by tearing down the statue of Ares (the town’s first patron) and replacing it with one of John the Baptist that was meant to symbolize Man (which the suicide mentions) • Those of you who remember Ares, the war-god of Greece, can imagine that he wouldn’t have been happy; when a wave of factional violence similar to the one between the Guelfs and Ghibellines (or Blacks and Whites) tore apart the city, people chalked it up to the angered god’s wrath • Thus Florence brought destruction needlessly upon itself, a curse that (as Dante can attest) has never stopped destroying the city’s substance (its people)

20. Canto XIV: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Second and Third Rounds • Figures: Capaneus • Allusions: Old Man of Crete • Punishable Sin: Violence (here, largely Against God) • Summary: In a compassionate move, Dante gathers up the branches and leaves the dogs broke off the bush and re-attaches them before moving off. He and Virgil reach the edge of the Wood and look out at a Plain of Burning Sand, the terrain of the Seventh Circle’s Third Round (where we’ll spend the next few Cantos). Fire rains down slowly from above the plain, landing on the sinners being punished there. The three groups, the Blasphemers (Violent Against God), Sodomites (Violent Against Nature), and Usurers (Violent Against Art), are punished in different ways, and the Blasphemers are the first the poets encounter. One in particular, Capaneus, still blasphemes God even as he lies stretched out on the burning sand. The poets continue walking along the edge of the Wood in order to avoid burning themselves, eventually reaching a red rill (a kind of river) that boils out of the wood and over the burning sand. Virgil seizes the opportunity to discuss the four rivers of Hell with Dante, and the Canto ends as the poets decide to walk along the banks of the boiling rill across the Third Round.

21. The Punishment • The Blasphemers are stretched across the burning plain on their backs (an allusion to Capaneus, who you’ll study soon), forced to lie under the falling flames while being scorched by the sand below • The Burning Plain of Sand represents sterility (using the same technique that T.S. Eliot used his The Waste Land), for there’s no fertility/life without water, and even the rain is made of fire • Dante seems to be arguing that nothing natural or positive results from any of the violence featured here

22. Phlegethon • The name means “river of fire,” and it’s one of the four “rivers” of Hell (including Acheron, Styx, and Cocytus, which is currently frozen) • This is the river of boiling blood that we saw in the first round, discovering here that it boils its way through the Wood and out onto the Plain • It gets shallower and deeper as it curves depending on which sinner is supposed to stand in it • Virgil will eventually inform Dante that this blood is the same stream as before, as well as where it originally comes from

23. Capaneus • One of the giant warrior-kings who waged war on the ancient city of Thebes, Capaneus brought about his own demise during the attack by daring the gods to protect the citizens • "Come now, Jupiter, and strive with all your flames against me! Or are you braver at frightening timid maidens with your thunder, and razing the towers of your father-in-law Cadmus?" • Before he could even finish speaking, Zeus (known as “Jupiter” to the Romans) slays him with a thunderbolt, and he falls burning from the walls until he lies outstretched on his back (Dante’s inspiration)

24. Old Man of Crete • We spoke of the different Ages (from Golden to Iron) during the Gilgamesh unit, and they return here as personified by the Old Man of Crete • His statue features components made out of each Age-associated substance: his head is gold, his arms and chest are silver, his midsection is made of brass, a foot is made of clay (representing the Roman Catholic Church), and the rest of him is made of iron • The statue is cracked, and tears flow from the fissure; these tears form the four rivers in Hell

25. Canto XV: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round • Figures: Ser Brunetto Latini • Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Nature) • Summary: The poets walk along the rill’s banks, protected from the burning sand by its powers. They come across a group of the Violent Against Nature as it runs below them, and one of the sinners calls out to Dante. Dante recognizes him – Ser Brunetto Latini, a writer who had mentored Dante even before Guido entered his life – and is taken aback to find him here. Latini talks about Dante with pride, but warns him that his future in Florence will contain a great deal of pain. The Canto ends with Latini’s “time to speak” expiring, and his punishment reactivates, causing him to skitter across the burning sand.

26. Violence Against Nature • Raffa: “Dante's inclusion of sodomy--understood here as sexual relations between males but not necessarily homosexuality in terms of sexual orientation--is consistent with strong theological and legal declarations in the Middle Ages condemning such activities for being "contrary to nature." In Dante's day, male-male relations--often between a mature man and an adolescent--were common in Florence despite these denunciations. Penalties could include confiscation of property and even capital punishment.”

27. The Punishment • The Violent Against Nature run in wandering packs across the Burning Plain of Sand, usually in circles • The burning sand represents the same sterility that it did before, as does the fire • The endless circles are meant to symbolize the broken cycle of nature – a life cycle that doubles back on itself due to a lack of reproduction • The wandering behavior results from having lost God’s guidance

28. Ser Brunetto Latini • One of Dante’s most painful encounters in Hell occurs here, as he barely recognizes his old mentor and friend under the damage that’s been done to him on the Burning Plain • If Virgil doesn’t want him to show much compassion for the sinners, he holds back here • His work, The Little Treasure, actually hints at Dante’s future work: a first-person narrator discovers he’ll have to live in exile (the Ghibellines having expelled the Guelfs at this point), and is so upset that he “lost the great highway” and went into a “strange wood” before heading for a mountain and journeying through strange realms

29. Ser Brunetto Latini • Brunetto wasn’t as strong a writer as Dante would become, but he promoted the idea – perhaps more than anyone before Dante, and certain since Cicero – that eloquence only benefits society when blended with wisdom • The Inferno isn’t worthwhile if there aren’t any ideas at the center of its intricate structure • There’s not actually any evidence to explain why Latini’s in this Round; he was married with several children • Many commentators have tried assigning a substitute sin to Latini, or theorized that his sin was a symbolic form of Violence Against Nature (a pursuit of immortality for the body, for example)

30. Canto XVI: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round • Figures: Jacopo Rusticucci, Guido Guerra, Tegghiaio Aldobrandi • Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Nature, although Art is also hinted at) • Summary: The poets draw nearer to the Great Cliff, which hosts a waterfall that leads down to the Eighth Circle. Before they can reach it, they encounter another band of the Violent Against Nature; three souls break away from the group this time to approach them. They ask Dante for news of Florence’s current condition (being damned, they can only see the future clearly), and he rages against the climate in his city. After the three return to their group, the poets reach the Cliff. Virgil pulls out a cord and tosses it over the edge of the cliff, and something huge begins flying towards them from below.

31. Jacopo / Guido / Tegghiaio • We’ve heard of the first and third before, as they were portrayed in Ciacco’s final speech in Canto III as men who wanted to do good things and ended up in Hell’s depths anyway • Oddly, Virgil demands that Dante teach them with great respect despite their sin – a reversal from his earlier behavior • Each of the three – Jacopo, Guido, and Tegghiaio – lived in Florence, and Dante admired their political sensibilities before they passed on • Guido had helped drive the Ghibellines out of Florence during the final battle in 1266 • Tegghiaio tried giving the Guelfs military advice, yet was (foolishly) ignored during their defeat in 1260 • Jacopo was a colleague of Tegghiaio’s, having risen from a low class to an influential position

32. Studying Politics • “O Florence! Your sudden wealth and your upstart Rabble, dissolute and overweening, Already set you weeping in your heart!” • This doesn’t conclude our political discussion so much as it reinforces the dark words Dante’s heard from Ciacco, Farinato, and Latini • There’s a weird sense of dramatic irony here: not only do we know what’s going to happen to Dante, but so does Dante. • It’s only “Dante” that’s unaware of his impending downfall

33. Canto XVII: Data File • Setting: The Seventh Circle, Third Round • Figures: Geryon • Allusions: Phaethon, Daedalus, Icarus • Punishable Sin: Violence (Against Art) • Summary: The monster from below arrives at the cliff: Geryon, the Monster of Fraud. Virgil negotiates with the beast for safe passage down the cliff, and sends Dante to look at the Violent Against Art. These sinners crouch at the edge of the Burning Plain, separated from the shades of their fellow beings. Each of them wears a large money-purse around his neck that bears the coat-of-arms of his family. After seeing them, he quickly turns back and heads for Virgil. The elder poet already sits atop Geryon, and convinces Dante to climb on; the two make a terrifying flight down into the Eighth Circle on the beast’s back.

34. Violent Against Art • Dante defines art as the crafts we draw from nature – our industry, whether it be practical or creative • To work hard and honestly while producing something is therefore to live in accordance with Nature, and Dante defines Art/Industry as Nature’s child – which makes it God’s grandchild • The Usurers (The Violent Against Art) weren’t people who burned paintings or suppressed expression • Rather, they simply tried to make money without working for it by charging people exorbitant interest rates

35. Violent Against Art • This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal today – have you tried finding a student loan? – but it was a huge deal in Florence • Raffa: Based on Biblical passages – fallen man must live “by the sweat of his brow” (Genesis 3:19), Jesus' appeal to his followers to “lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35) – medieval theologians considered the lending of money at interest to be sinful. Thomas Aquinas, based on Aristotle, considered usury…to be contrary to nature because ‘it is in accordance with nature that money should increase from natural goods and not from money iMtself.’”

36. The Punishment • The sinners are forced to stare with tear-filled eyes at their purses forever • They aren’t supposed to look at anything else because their entire existence revolved around chasing money-purses – similar to how the Avaricious and Prodigal push their stones, although at least those sinners were dealing badly with their own money (whereas the Usurers occupy a weird place between the Avaricious and the Thieves) • The crest on the purse that clearly identifies each sinner with his family indicates that they have brought dishonor to their families, quite possibly with their families’ permission • Dante implies that these powerful families built their wealth on these illicit foundations, and are therefore undeserving of their influential positions in society

37. Geryon • In classic myth, Geryon was a cruel king who was slain by Hercules • Virgil chose to describe him as a “three-bodied shade” in The Aeneid, and Dante appears to have taken that quite literally • The creature is a crazy mash-up of beast and human, with a man’s head and honest face atop a huge, beastly body covered with pretty and intricate reptilian scales. He also has fur-covered legs and paws, with a huge, coiling scorpion’s tail finishing off his body. • Geryon’s meant to be a creature of Fraud (hence the honest face and pretty scales masking the scorpion’s tail)

38. Geryon • His scales are meant to recall the colorful patterns on a leopard’s hide – a sign of his realm (he’s a quasi-Threshold Guardian for the Eighth Circle, which houses the Sins of the Leopard) • Dante mentions in Canto XVI that he actually tried using the cord Virgil tosses over the edge of the Great Cliff to catch the Leopard when it blocked his path, but that it was too quick for him; here, Virgil uses it to tempt the great beast of Fraud out of hiding • Geryon can also be associated with “the sort of factual truth so wondrous that it appears to be false” • Some have suggested that Geryon is meant to recall the incredible journeys of The Divine Comedy itself; after all, is this truth, or fiction?

39. Phaethon • Dante is (somewhat realistically) completely terrified by his flight through Hell’s air • He alludes to two earlier stories of mortals taking flight by unnatural means (this is centuries before the airplane, obviously) with terrible consequences • The first is Phaethon, a figure from Ovid’s Metamorphosis who sought to confirm that he was the son of Apollo by seizing the sun-chariot’s reins (against his father’s advice) • He proved unable to control the horses, and they scorched the sky as they tore through the atmosphere • Forced to choose between saving the world and sparing Apollo’s son, Jupiter slew Phaethon with a thunderbolt

40. Daedalus and Icarus • The second story – an equally tragic one, and also from Ovid’s Metamorphosis – involves Daedalus, an inventor we encountered earlier in the story of the Minotaur • Daedalus and his son, Icarus, were imprisoned in a tall tower on the edge of the island of Crete. In order to escape, Daedalus collected the feathers of birds that flew into the tower and bound them with wax and thread into wings • He built a pair for himself and a pair for Icarus, warning the boy that the wax would melt if he flew too close to the sun • But Icarus, overcome with joy, ignores his father’s advice (just as Phaethon did) and streaks into the sky; his wax melts, and the boy plummeted to his death in the sea before his father can reach him • Daedalus is forced to soar on towards land, mourning his son all the way

41. In Conclusion • The final allusions to Phaethon and Icarus serve as indicators that the hardest part of Dante’s journey lies ahead, and that there’s a danger in getting too close to the heat • Fascinatingly, Dante continues to regard many of the Circle’s denizens with either sympathy or pity, and Virgil no longer seems to mind – not at all what one would expect from someone traveling through the land of Violence • Now on to the final sin: Fraud